


It's Not What I'm Doing, It's Why I'm Doing

by BlommaBelle



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Office, F/M, Human Resources, Humor, One-Sided France/England, Pervert France, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 16:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2856761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlommaBelle/pseuds/BlommaBelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur Kirkland is forced to bring Amelia F. Jones and Lovino Vargas into his office due to Lovino's many, many complaints about Amelia's behavior.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Not What I'm Doing, It's Why I'm Doing

"Well, I think we all know why I've brought you two in here today," Arthur Kirkland said slowly, shuffling through the papers that made the manila envelope in his hands ridiculously thick. He was head of human resources, hated the French pervert who had the office next to his and wanted nothing more than for the two people sitting across from him to just get along because their bickering was really, really starting to create more work for him. If there was anything Arthur wanted most on this Earth (besides a piano dropping on Francis's head from the sky), it was for Amelia F. Jones and Lovino Vargas to just at least be civil to each other.

It wasn't like he wanted them to be friends and hug and go out for a drink. All he wanted was for them to not give him more work to do. He was already a very busy man, what with attempting to hide from Francis all day.

"I do know why we're here!" Lovino snapped. The Italian man, as always, was impeccably dressed and had nearly fainted of disgust when Amelia had questioned upon entering the office whether or not his suit was "gucky brand". It had taken both men in the room a few moments to realize she had meant to say "Gucci" but had grossly mispronounced it. Lovino had apparently moved to America from Italy with his brother, a young man who worked at a restaurant in town. Lovino's job, however, was a supervisor in charge of nearly four other people. It was wildly stressful and that didn't go too well with his personality. Everyone was so terrified of Lovino losing his temper that they just got their work done to save them the temper tantrum.

Everyone was afraid… except Amelia.

Amelia was a typical all-American girl. Arthur had taken a peek at her paperwork—graduated from high school with honors, attended a state university. She lived in town and roomed with her sister, another employee there. She heated up hotdogs in the microwave every day for lunch at work and guzzled Coke at her desk (she worked as a receptionist for the company) while she typed rapidly at her computer, but judging from the formal complaints Arthur had been thumbing through, he was fairly certain the time she spent goofing off greatly outweighed the time she spent actually working.

"I know why we're here," Lovino repeated, turning to glare at Amelia almost accusingly. "But no doubt this idiota has no idea what's going on!"

Amelia tapped her chin, thinking. "I thought Artie said we were doing some kind of ceremonial virgin sacrifice." She gave Lovino a pointed look.

"Eh? What are you saying? I'm not a virgin!"

"Uh-huh." Amelia crossed her legs and sat back in her seat, rolling her pretty blue eyes. "Whatever you say, Mario, but humping your own hand doesn't count as getting laid."

"What?!" Lovino looked ready to tackle her to the ground. "As if you have any room to judge! There aren't exactly any men lining up to date you, 'hero girl'."

Amelia pouted and Arthur scrambled to get them all back on point. "We're here to discuss the… uh, internal conflict that's been ongoing between you two as of late. Hopefully we'll be able to amend whatever it is that's going on…"

"I think all your answers are on those formal complaints!" Lovino pointed at the manila folder Arthur still held. "You'll only have to read a few to see why I think this girl should be locked up!"

"You wound me," Amelia said, giving him a small, humored smirk. This only served to make Lovino even angrier and he began to say something in rapid, angry Italian. Amelia's cheeks turned red and she huffed. "I can speak Italian, you know. I'm not a 'cock-hungry demon-whore'."

Lovino gaped, his scowl momentarily gone. "You… si può parlare italiano?"

"I just said I can, didn't I?" Amelia stuck her nose up in the air. "I learned it so I could tell you that you look like a girl in those pants in your own language. Thanks for ruining the surprise, pompinara."

Lovino gave her another nasty look, his momentary appreciation for Amelia's knowledge now forgotten. He turned to Arthur, looking downright murderous. "Read the first one."

Arthur nodded and opened up the folder, pulling out the thin, yellow copy of the Formal Complaint Form. Many boxes had been checked, many places had been stamped as 'received'. For the most part, complaints were ignored if they were tiny disputes in the workplace, and these ones had been treated no differently.

"Alright… the first complaint is from Lovino Vargas about Amelia F. Jones," Arthur read. "Uh… it says here… 'Amelia has been paging herself over the intercom every five minutes for the last hour. She keeps saying, 'Call for Amelia F. Jones'. She isn't even trying to disguise her voice. It's distracting me and everyone else here.'"

"And no one did anything about it!" Lovino cried while Amelia just smirked proudly and sat back, arms crossed over her chest.

Arthur looked between them before sighing loudly through his nostrils. "Amelia… what do you have to say about this?"

"Never did get that call."

Arthur and Lovino rolled their eyes at the same time as Arthur pulled out another complaint. Skimming it over, he sighed. "'Every time I ask Amelia to do something for me, like make copies or phone a client, she always replies, "Would you like fries with that?" It was not funny the first time and it isn't funny now that she's been doing it for the last two weeks. Furthermore, she has been approaching my desk to tell me she has done something I asked and always ends her sentence with, 'In accordance with the prophecy.'"

Amelia was visibly doing her best to try not to laugh and Arthur could feel a small smile twitching at the corners of his mouth, but he managed to morph it into a look of disapproval.

Lovino, meanwhile, looked more pissed off than ever, mostly because Amelia seemed wildly unapologetic and because he was reminded once again of what an annoyance the stupid receptionist was to him.

"This next one," Arthur began, picking up another paper, "says: 'Amelia has begun to wear the exact same outfit as me, except tailored for women. When I wore a green polo and khakis a few days ago, she showed up the next day wearing a green polo and khakis. I then wore a white button-down and black pants and she came to work the next day in a white button-down and black pants. She has even begun to style her cowlick so that it looks like my curl. I find this annoying.'"

Now Amelia didn't even bother trying to keep back her laughter. She threw her head back and nearly busted a gut in her freak-out. Lovino looked like he was torn between setting her on fire and storming off to jump off a cliff.

"Alright, I think I see a pattern," Arthur said as calmly as he could, setting the papers aside from now. "Amelia, you enjoy frustrating Lovino, then?"

"You think?" Lovino hissed furiously, glaring at the girl. She, meanwhile, just shrugged carelessly.

"It all started when Antonio, you know, that Spanish guy from customer service was telling me about Lovino's blush," she said. "I tried flirting with him but he didn't get the message, and then I found out his face turned red whenever I annoyed him. Tonio's right, it is cute."

Upon hearing this, Lovino blushed bright red and Amelia let out an excited squeal, pointing to him excitedly.

"See? See that? That's what I mean!"

Arthur chewed on the inside of his cheek. "Alright…"

"Read some more," Lovino snapped, hoping to take attention away from the fact that his cheeks were burning such a hot red that he could boil a pot of noodles.

Shrugging, Arthur grabbed another one and skimmed it over. "Mm… 'Amelia has set up mosquito netting around her desk and she keeps playing jungle noises very loudly on her computer. When I asked her what she was doing, she just looked at me and said, "It isn't WHAT I'm doing, it's WHY I'm doing."'"

Now Arthur couldn't keep back a small chuckle. Lovino looked downright horrified as Amelia grinned triumphantly.

"That was one of my better ones," she said conversationally. "Took a damn long time to clean up, though."

"This isn't funny!" Lovino insisted, shooting Amelia a glare. She gave him a sweet smile that only seemed to infuriate him further. "This is all a waste of company time!"

"Oh, yeah," Amelia said flatly. "Time I could be using to transfer calls and put people on hold. I'm going to be the downfall of this business."

In hopes of distracting from some kind of physical altercation (Lord knew Arthur didn't want to deal with that paperwork), he quickly yanked out another formal complaint. "'Amelia has been sending me pointless e-mails detailing to me everywhere she goes. For example, this morning, she sent me 'I'm going to be in the bathroom if you need me. Stall #2 if all goes well, #3 if not.' She also sent me four e-mails detailing her trip to the vending machine and two e-mails about stopping to tie her shoe on her way back to her desk from the vending machine.'"

Arthur arched an eyebrow and looked between them before finally setting his sights on Amelia. She shrugged.

"I mean, what if he needed me and I wasn't there? I don't want him to have a heart attack, poor guy." She tapped her fingers on the top of the desk and sighed. "I honestly don't know why we're here. As far as I can tell nothing's wrong."

"Have you been listening at all?" Lovino halfway shouted. "There's a reason I filed these complaints and it's all because you're a nuisance who would rather follow me around and annoy me rather than do your actual work! That's why we're here!"

Amelia stared at Lovino for a few moments quietly and then sighed and turned her attention to her nails. "Well sorry that I want to liven things up around here. Seriously, listening to my sister talk about the history of pancakes is more exciting than this crap."

Something suddenly shifted near Arthur's feet and he gasped and jumped back when Francis popped out from under his desk. Arthur did not want to know what that French pervert was planning on doing to him before he apparently just had to comment on the current situation.

"How did you get under there?!" Arthur screeched, standing up so quickly from his seat that it fell to the ground.

Amelia blinked. "Oh, yeah, he army-crawled in here a while ago."

"What?" Arthur glared at her. "And you didn't say anything?"

"He didn't say anything either," she pointed out, motioning toward Lovino. The Italian shrugged indifferently.

"How I get in here and what I was doing under your desk is irrelevant, mon cher," Francis said, leaning toward Lovino and Amelia with a big smile on his face. "What is important is the fact that this room is thick with the scent of amour."

"If that's your bloody way of asking me out, frog, you can take that idea and shove it right up your—"

"We will get to the delicious subject of you and me later, Arthur," Francis said, winking at him. "But I am talking about the electrifying sexual tension between these two here."

Lovino and Amelia both went bright red at the same moment.

"What the hell are you implying, bastardo?" Lovino halfway roared while Amelia put her head in her hands and didn't move.

Francis chuckled. "There is a thin line between love and hate, you know. If it were me in your shoes, I'd just have sex with her and get it over with. But I feel that you two have… chemistry, no? Ah! It is a classic story of l'amour!"

"Enough of you!" Arthur snapped, trying to shoo a very unwilling Francis from his office. "This is a private matter and I won't have you—"

"Why would I ever be interested in the woman who pretended not to hear me for an entire day, no matter how loudly I yelled or how slowly I spoke?!" Lovino snapped, turning to glare at Amelia. She was busy pinching the bridge of her nose and looked mortified.

"Ah, oui, if she did that to me, I would have sex with her."

"She… she signed me up for junkmail lists!" Lovino's voice was a little more steady as Amelia looked at him, her mouth tugging into a small smile.

Francis thought about that. "Take her out for dinner. I bet she likes Italian food. Better yet, make dinner for her yourself!"

Lovino blinked and then stuttered, half-heartedly, "She rearranges my cubicle because she thinks it's not 'zen' enough."

"Name one of your children after me if you would be so kind. Such a cute pair!" Francis chortled as he was thrown from the office by Arthur.

"I do apologize for the interruption," Arthur said, closing his door and carefully locking it. He then went back to his desk and sat down, glancing at two very embarrassed co-workers. "Now, I think we'll be able to solve this by simply talking things through. Obviously Amelia is taking her… uh, restless creative energy and putting it to use in an attempt to humor her co-workers and Lovino simply doesn't appreciate her behavior. I'm sure we can come to an—"

"Would you like to have dinner with me on Friday?" Lovino suddenly blurted, glaring at the floor.

Amelia jumped a little in her seat and then shifted. "Um… yeah. That'd be nice… uhm. Remember that rigatoni you brought into work a while back for my sister's birthday?"

"Yeah?"

"If it's not too much to ask, could you make that? It was heavenly." Amelia then smiled at him a little shyly.

"Uh-huh. I mean, yeah. Sure. No problem."

Arthur sat back, blinking as the two stood up and chatted amicably on their way out of his office. He couldn't help but smile, considering things had all worked themselves out in the end without him having to do any paperwork.

***

"Ah. Arthur. You're the one we come to about workplace relationships, right?"

Amelia was peeking her head into Arthur's office the following Monday after the meeting that had been held between her and Lovino. Arthur glanced up at her from his computer, a bit annoyed at having his game of solitaire interrupted.

"I provide all the forms you'd need to fill out." Arthur frowned. "Did you need one?"

"Might as well grab me two. Lovi's gonna halfta fill one out, too."

"So I take it your dinner went well?" Arthur quickly began to flip through one of his desk drawers, looking for the right forms, only really half-interested. He had kind of hoped things wouldn't work out so that he could shove that in Francis's face. But it looked like that bastard's instincts had been right.

Amelia flushed and looked away, eyes distant. "Yeah… it went really well. Really, really, REALLY well, if you know what I mean."

"Ugh." Arthur found the papers and handed them to her. "Just fill these out, then I need you two to sign some consent forms and whatnot."

Amelia smiled a little too innocently. "Just fill these out? You need us to sign some consent forms and whatnot?"

"Yes. That's what I said."

"Yes? That's what you said?"

Arthur frowned, his massive eyebrows crinkling together. "What are you going on about?"

"What am I going on about?"

"Mia."

Both of them looked up and saw Lovino standing in the doorway, a small smirk on his face. "She tried to pull that one on me a while back. Looks like you're her new victim, eyebrow bastard."

"I'm her new victim? Why?!"

Amelia giggled. "You're my new victim?"

"Shut it!" Arthur ground his teeth together. Amelia smiled sweetly and then walked off, pausing to kiss Lovino's cheek before she went back to her desk. After she was gone, Arthur gave Lovino a pleading look. "Can't you tell her to just… not?"

Lovino shrugged. "Better you than me."

Arthur groaned as Lovino walked off. Francis _and_ Amelia? He hated his job.


End file.
